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Government’s chief science advisor, John Roche.
New Zealand needs to have "a really mature conversation" around modern gene editing technologies and synthetic biology, says the Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor, Dr John Roche.
Roche says that public resistance to advanced technologies is one of the challenges New Zealand agriculture faces as it tries to meet the nutrition needs of a rising world population.
He says science gathers knowledge, and innovation makes change, faster than society is comfortable with - but he believes we have reached a pivotal point in history with the convergence of artificial intelligence with genetic modification technologies.
"We are now at a point where we've got analytical tools, and we're very close to the computer processing power, to be able to interrogated a genome with the phenotype databases that we have, to understand the finest details of those genomes and where differences would have differences in their traits, and we've got the editing power to be able to do that with high precision."
"It is an exciting time, but it is a frightening time for a lot of people."
Roche said that New Zealand's primary sector needs the technology because of the limitations of traditional breeding.
New Zealand's primary sector was largely based on two species of plant, perennial ryegrass and white clover.
But research by AgResearch's Dr Jim Crush showed only modest improvements from 30 years of traditional ryegrass and clover breeding, despite our plant breeders being among the best in the world.
Productivity was improving but not fast enough, while our competitors were using modern developing technologies to get ahead.
"The vast majority of the developed world's dairy industries, for example, use genetically modified corn, genetically modified lucerne, genetically modified soybeans, genetically modified canola.
"They are using these technologies to get out ahead of us and our regulations are not letting us do that.
"We need to have a really mature conversation about this and we need regulations that will enable us to at least try these technologies to see if they will deliver the traits that we need that will help to drive our economy forward."
Roche was addressing the E Tipu Future Food and Fibre Summit in Christchurch, which aimed to bring together leading thinkets and innovators to share insights into the future of the sector.
In a speech also delivered to the Beef+Lamb NZ conference earlier in the day, Roche said New Zealand was unique among developed countries in the proportion of its earnings coming from the primary sector. The sector had a really bright future, although its future shape was up for debate.
Referring to an old saying that there are 'only nine meals between humankind and anarchy', Roche noted that you might need a lawyer, a doctor, or a policeman once in your life, "but every day, three times a day, you need a farmer".
Pointing out that humans' average heights have been increasing as a result of increased dietary protein, Roche said the world is no longer seeking calories.
"It's seeking protein and it's seeking high quality protein - again, a huge opportunity for New Zealand, which is amongst the best in the world at producing high quality proteins."
Roche said that in 1973 only a very few countries - New Zealand, Australia and a few others - were eating what was considered enough protein but now, much more of the world is.
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New Zealand needs to have "a really mature conversation" around modern gene editing technologies and synthetic biology, says the Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor, Dr John Roche.
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